Book of Matches

Book of Matches. Losing none of the exuberance which has become a hallmark of Simon Armitage's poetry, these poems are more personal. The book is divided into three sections - the "Book of Matches" which are sonnets, "Becoming of Age" and "Reading the Bans", a series of poems about Armitage's marriage.

Contents

I - BOOK OF MATCHES

'My party piece'
'Strike two. My mind works'
'I rate myself as a happy, contented person'
'I like vivid, true-to-life love scenes'
'I am able to keep my mind steadily'
'Thunder and lightning hardly ever upset me'
'People talk nonsense and I put them straight'
'People never push me into doing things'
'Mother, any distance greater than a single span'
'My father thought it bloody queer'
'I am very bothered when I think'
'A safe rule in life is: trust nobody'
'Mice and snakes don't give me the shivers'
'I live in fear of letting people down'
'I'm dreaming of that work, Man Seated Reading'
'Brung up with swine, I was'
'Those bastards in their mansion'
'There are those who manage their private affairs'
'ankylosing spondylitis'
'Let this matchstick be a brief biography'
'I've made out a will; I'm leaving myself'
'I thought I'd write my own obituary. Instead'
'Life'
'I have dreams like nightmares where I am deserted'
`I think about the time'
'I feel I am at the end of my tether'
'No convictions - that's my one major fault'
'The story changes every time'
'Thinking back, they eith puller me like a tooth'
'Some unimportant word or phrase'

II - BECOMING OF AGE

Map Reference
The Lost Letter of the Late Jud Fry
To Poverty
Tale
Reverse Charge
You
Parable of the Dead Donkey Hitcher
Act of Union
Cataract Operation
On the Trail of the Old Ways
Penelope
To His Lost Lover
Becoming of Age